My first time on this discussion topic and new to a horrendous preteen. He seems to be turning before my eyes from a lovely cuddly loving boy to a sulky, can kicking, uncommunicative pain in the arse and I seem to be in his eyes someone who has no real right to exist . Well - today anyway. Really refreshing to hear this is maybe a bit normal. So - horrendous day with my 11 year old today when I took his mates to cinema at my expense, went hunting for birthday pressies for him and took him into town and allowed him to hang out - all he wanted really but got no thanks whatsoever - only resentment for existing. Came back home to my 3 year old - he ran to greet me - open armed 'oh your back mummy' - such innocence that it made me cry (although he was on step 3 times this morning with tantrums for kicking and punching

piano practice. it's a miracle that she is actually doing some but of course she can't do it on HER OWN, so she asks me to sit in the dining room where the piano is.

dd 'oh this piano is awful i hate it'

me 'well if you are serious about piano i'll get it tuned'

dd 'humpf'

dd tinkles through a tune.me 'that was nice'

dd 'don't SAY ANYTHING - i didn't ask you to say anything, god all you had to do was just sit down and listen'

she then winds up both boys, hogs sofa, tv and computer, moans about her baked potato, says 'whatever' about a thousand times, refuses to put her plate in the dishwasher, whacks herself with her jump hoop thing and starts hyperventilating because of the pain and for the grand finale gets into bed wearing her school uniform - giving her yet another opportunity to say 'whatever' when i ask her to put her jimjams on.

This thread is great. It helps so much to know I am not alone! We don't do group teeth-brushing either.

DD is 12 next month and I KNOW it's a horrid age with all those hormones etc but OMG I cannot keep up with her mood swings at the moment.

Today alone after school (we are overseas) we have had:

Pretending she had done the running club she begged to join instead of continuing with swimming, even though she is a really talented swimmer. She had not even broken a sweat and it's over 30 here so it was pretty obvious she was lying. Getting a lot of this passive resistance lately.Couldn't respond normally to anything I or her siblings said.Got in a flap about maths homework, tears etc, worried about getting into trouble from teacher. Much drama.DH tried to help, more shouting from DD then she declared she didn't care if the homework was done or not.More crying and "it's all so unfair, all I do is homework after school". Then "I don't have anyone to talk to, no-one cares." Started to feel sorry for her/guilty that I should talk to her more, then next minute she is laughing at something on tv and saying "sorry for being grumpy, I was just a bit stressed."

Easier said than done, I know, but I give DD(11) loads of cuddles after I was advised to do that on another thread. Whilst it's the last thing I want to do while she's screaming at me that I'M NOT LISTENING TO HER but I've found it really calms her down. I haven't got to the point yet when she'd rather die than have a cuddle though. Not sure what I'll do then.